Earth Today | CANARI welcomes ecosystem assessments across OECS

THE COUNCIL of Ministers for Environmental Sustainability in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) have signalled their interest in national ecosystem assessments at their virtual meeting held last month.

It is a move welcomed by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), a regional technical non-profit organisation operating in the Caribbean for three decades.

“These studies will enable Eastern Caribbean states to integrate the values of biodiversity and ecosystem services into economic decision-making and support the OECS’s commitment to sustainable, inclusive and resilient development and COVID-19 recovery,” CANARI noted in a release to the media.

“National ecosystem assessments support decision-making for biodiversity and ecosystems management, climate change mitigation and adaptation and disaster resilience, and are highlighted as critical tools in the OECS’s biodiversity and ecosystems management framework, which was endorsed by the ministers in 2020,” the entity added.

Since 2019, the Government of Grenada has been undertaking a national ecosystem assessment with technical support from the CANARI and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), engaging scientists and local experts in the assessments.

This year, OECS ministers were informed of a proposed collaboration between the OECS Commission and UNEP-WCMC to mobilise resources to assist other OECS member states to conduct similar assessments. CANARI has been identified to provide technical advice and mentoring for this work in the OECS.

“CANARI welcomes the work by the OECS Commission towards scaling out national ecosystem assessments across the region and confirms our commitment to supporting this critical work for the sustainable management of our region’s biodiversity,” CANARI’s executive director, Nicole Leotaud, who was an observer at the OECS meeting, said in the release.

Meanwhile, the ongoing assessment in Grenada forms a part of a global initiative, administered by UNEP-WCMC, in support of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Funding is provided through the International Climate Initiative by the Government of Germany, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety.